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Ken Patera returning in 87

When Ken Patera made his return in the spring of 87 he was heavily pushed as a fan favorite vowing revenge on Bobby Heenan and the Heenan family.

Now obviously Patera had regressed in the few years he was away, but he seemed to be pretty over at first, even getting his own Coliseum Video upon his return.

He suffered a bad injury to his arm over the summer and never seemed the same.

Would a heel turn and return to Heenan have salvaged his comeback?

I am pretty sure the Observer or the Apter mags reported he was rumored to face Hogan at Wrestlemania 4 around that time.

​Yeah, if I'm remembering correctly the general plan around the time of his return was that he would still be awesome and would go heel to be the Hogan dead body of the month at some point, but he was such a spectacular flop upon his return that they just dropped all those ideas completely and jobbed him out. Even before his arm injury he completely lost all his intensity and drive and just looked like a guy instead of a star. ​Apparently when you're NOT high on drugs 24/7 you tend to be a calmer person. Who knew?

About 15 years ago, my neighbor had gotten a tape from someone that had wrestling on it so he gave it to me. It had the PPV version of WrestleWar 89 including the Oak Ridge Boys concert... my buddy and I never laughed so damn much at anything. Unfortunately Vince stole the idea and put on even worse concerts at Wrestlemania :(

I'm still unsure why my TV was showing different episodes of Raw in late 2012 than others were seeing, because I was watching this entire time and have no recollection whatsoever of when Ryback "got over huge."

I've been watching some 1992 WCW and he was around even back then as Robby Walker. He was supposed to be teaming with Ron Simmons(then world champ) at the November Clash until WCW grew a brain and brought in... 2 Cold "We don't even know his name!!!" Scorpio

I'll say that I went to a Raw in Sacramento where Punk and Vince got into a fight with kendo sticks and Ryback came out to make the save and the place exploded. He got an honest to goodness monster pop. I didn't understand it at the time and I still don't now, but he had a short window where he was over pretty big.

At the time I thought they were gonna come out with Hall of Pain Version 2.0 or something. But he went out and started jobbing and hasnt really stopped. Maybe it was like a kane/big show "thank you. Here's someone thay has some following you can beat" sorta thing.

This is WWE's biggest problem and why they struggle to make the next face of the company. They take a guy who gets over with the audience and they force them into title matches with no intention of them winning, instead of letting them dominate the midcard for a year or so before winning the big title. It's why Reigns and Ryback have struggled. It's also why your two biggest organic faces (Punk and Bryan) got so over. They just kicked ass in the midcard instead of getting forced into the main event (the problem there, however, was that WWE didn't pull the trigger and keep them in the main event).

I say he was fine until he jobbed to Henry at Wrestlemania. Common sense booking had him getting his win back at Extreme Rules but instead of that he's hastily plugged into a program with Cena which I would've waited until Summerslam anyway but even worse than that they turn the guy heel when a face/face matchup would've been just fine.

at least people get context for Heenan's reaction during the close of the Bash after Hogan's reveal, since he can plainly see Hogan nailed it and any chance of heel 4 Horsemen managed by Heenan getting a chance was gone